Introduction. What is campaigning?

Transcription

1 Campaigning toolkit

2 If you require this document in an alternative format, such as large print or a coloured background, please contact [email protected] Introduction A well planned campaign will increase the likelihood of its success. If you are involved in campaigning at all then you should get into the habit of factoring a planning stage into the start of any campaign. The tools in this booklet will help you to plan campaigns about the issues that you care about as a rep, in your society or outwith the university. Most of these tools are common planning tools used by many campaigning organisations such as the National Union of Students (NUS). What is campaigning? 1 The mobilising of forces by organisations to influence others in order to effect an identified and desired social, economic, environmental or political change. 1 For EUSA campaigning is about having an impact, creating positive change in students lives. 1 The Good Campaigns Guide: Campaigning for Impact, Tess Kingham and Jim Coe for NCVO, 2005

3 What is not a campaign? Producing a report with some recommendations - if you do not campaign to make this a reality, you will create little impact. An awareness raising event - campaigning involves having a specific aim in order to identify what you want to change and developing a clear strategy to do it. Creating a Facebook group - if you do not translate online support into action then you will make no impact. Producing a series of leaflets - these can help raise your profile but what impact are you looking to have on decision makers? Always have an ask. Where to start? What is the problem? Whatever the issue you want to campaign on you should be really clear about why you are campaigning and what change you actually want to bring about. Some questions to consider before you start: What is the problem? How do you know it s a problem? (What evidence do you have? Who out of the EUSA membership does this problem affect? e.g. all or just international students, female students, KB based students) What do you want the outcome of this campaign to be? What will be the impact of the campaign on the following: EUSA, the University, the local community, effected members, all members.

4 Analyse the issue To understand what you need to do to achieve the change that you seek to make you need to understand what the problem is. When faced with a problem that you want to change it can seem overwhelming. However problems can be broken down so that it is easier to identify the individual changes that are needed. You can use the problem and solution tree to help turn problems into solutions. On the problem tree write the problem on the trunk, identify the roots of that problem and identify the consequences on the branches. On the solution tree write the vision across the trunk (opposite of the problem), identify solutions to each of the roots of the problem and on the branches identify the positive impact of solving this problem. Consequences Effects Problem Vision Roots Solutions

5 Planning a campaign Set SMART objectives You must create SMART objectives for your campaign. The smarter your objectives are the more likely your campaign is to succeed. Specific Measurable Achievable Resourced Time bound Student safety campaign Aim: A 20% decrease in the numbers of crimes reported in student halls by December Objective: University installs security lighting outside each hall by January 2015 and runs information sessions for all students in January and September Student elections campaign Aim: By June 2016 increase the number of international students standing in elections by 20%. Objective: Run a training session and a social event for interested candidates prior to nominations. Advertise these to international student groups. Student environmental campaign Aim: For the university to be top of the Green League in 3 years. Objective: That the university employs a full-time environmental manager by the end of the year.

6 Planning for IMPACT As stated previously campaigning is about having an impact and creating positive change in people s lives. The impact is more than your overall aim. It s the effect that achieving your overall impact will have. It s bringing about significant or lasting changes in people s lives, brought about by a given action, or series of actions. 2 For example your aim may be to ensure that geology students can afford to attend course field trips. One of your objectives may be to convince the university to provide bursaries of up to 200 for the poorest students on the course and you want them to agree to this by the start of the new academic year. Your impact is the wider benefit that meeting this objective and aim will have the geology course at your institution is more accessible for more students. Mobilising support Campaign team It is important to involve other people in your campaign. The more people there are involved the harder it is for the decision maker to ignore. It also brings a range of skills and ideas to the campaign and more people to help take forward actions and tasks. The Campaign Team Matrix (next page) is a tool you can use to help you build a campaign team. See the National Union of Students (NUS) example below from a student campaign to stop the closure of a satellite campus. 2 The Good Campaigns Guide: Campaigning for Impact, Tess Kingham and Jim Coe for NCVO, 2005

7 Potential Campaigner Why would they be interested? How can you get them on board? What can they do? What will they get out of it? Course Reps - Will have to - Immediate - Petition - Win = and students on travel further. communication from every continuing courses at the - Will lose the to reps. student at to study at campus great teaching - Shout out in campus. campus. space and lectures of - Reps can - Reps will resources. those affected. help write be more - Could lead to formal empowered course closures. consultation to make response, change specific to more course. meaningful - Gather case role. studies from other students. Students in halls at the campus Sports teams who use facilities at the campus Anti cuts campaign group Staff trade union

8 How to get people involved Mobilising people to help with your campaign can sometimes be difficult. However, everyone cares about something and it s just a case of finding out what they care about and communicating your campaign to them in a way that makes them feel affected by it. You need to make people feel strongly about something and then show them a way that they can do something about it. Leading them through the Anger > Hope > Action model can be a helpful way of engaging people in your campaign. Anger (sense of injustice about the issue) Isn t it awful that Did you know that It s so unfair that Hope (doesn t have to be this way) We know how we can fix this Wouldn t it be great if If everyone came together Action (give them a clear action) Sign our petition! Write to your MP! Come to our campaign meeting! How to keep them involved Begin with a clear aim Target people with a vested interest Communicate what you want to achieve Let people see the impact they re having Find out their motivations for getting involved Keep in contact Celebrate successes Say thank you Say thank you!

9 Power mapping Who are your stakeholders? Understand the importance of mapping out your allies, your influencers and the decision makers. Know who will support you and who you need to influence. Think too about who can help you to influence others. This will help you to understand what kind of actions you should take. Decision maker The person/group with the ultimate power to say yes or no to your campaign. Influencer Any person/group in a position to shape the decision maker s opinion. Ally Any person/group who will benefit from your campaign. You can use a chart like the one below to mark people and groups in relation to how much they support your campaign and how powerful they are. Plot each of your stakeholders according to how much influence they have in regard to achieving your aim and how much they oppose or support your position. Power (influence) Principal University Court Students NUS Local MSP Student newspaper Local newspaper Other students associations Position - (How sympathetic they are) +

10 Tactics What tactics will you use? You will need to use different tactics for different objectives and for different people that you want to influence. Be creative but stay focused on your objectives. Remember that some activities may take a lot of effort and not achieve much in the end whereas others will involve little effort and could make a great difference. For example an event can take a lot of time and people resources, but if it has no focus it may not be useful. It may even be detrimental if few people show up. A meeting takes little effort but if it s with the right person it could be the stepping stone to bringing about the change you want. Some things to keep in mind: An ill-timed or poorly judged intervention can do more damage than it brings benefit. Each decision about a tactic must be taken based on the situation at the time, taking into consideration the people involved and other events and activities taking place. The situation is complicated when you are focusing a tactic on an organisation that provides you with funding. Think about the wider impact that your actions could have. Don t get carried away with tactics without stopping to ensure that they form part of a more coherent plan. They should have a strategic purpose and not just be taking place for the sake of it. Sometimes public actions are not required and influencing work with the right individuals can be more effective. Have clear asks of your target audience. They may want to help you but you ll need to tell them what you want them to do. If you arrange a meeting with an MSP or another one of your influencers make sure that when you leave the meeting they have agreed to do something to help you.

11 Timeline When you have decided your aims and objectives, have a clear idea of who you will need to involve and what actions you are going to carry out then you can create a timeline of your campaign. This is a really useful exercise as it pulls together all aspects of your campaign. Your timeline may change, but it helps to see clearly what you need to do and by when. It allows you to see potential time issues and can identify good/bad times to carry out actions. Below is an example of a basic timeline for a student campaign to convince a university geology department to cover the costs of a compulsory field trip. On the timeline you mark in important static dates, and then mark in your actions and when you intend to complete your objectives. Don t forget to mark in monitoring and evaluation points. Sep 2013 Research Reading week Postcard design with marketing News story Monitoring point Christmas holidays Postcard collection Elections Meet Principal University Court pass new policy to cover costs of trip Easter break Evaluation June 2014

12 Evaluation and monitoring Monitoring is something you do throughout the campaign to help you stay on track and identify whether you may need to change tactic. Evaluation is something you do at the end. It helps you and others to learn from your campaign. Monitoring and evaluation is simpler if you have set specific and measurable objectives. Below are examples of tools that can help you to evaluate whether your campaign is on track and is successful. Outcomes/objective Indicator Target How to gather data The University to provide bursaries of up to 200 to the poorest students to cover course costs by start of next academic year. Policy passed at University Court. Schools to provide means-tested support for course costs. Minutes of Court meeting. The University to make course costs fully transparent by start of next academic year. Policy passed on making costs available to students prior to start of course. Courses provide information about course costs to students before they begin their studies. Policy published in minutes. What went wrong It felt like the campaign lost track half way through. It was more difficult to get students involved in the campaign activities than expected and so some events were poorly attended. Lessons to learn Ensure a thorough planning session takes place at the start to agree clear aims and what needs to be achieved. Plan in a monitoring stage half way through so that you can identify if you need to change plan/tactics. Research to find out how strongly students feel about the issue. Ensure students are involved from the start. Ensure the campaign message is clear and easy to communicate. Think more about the different campaign tactics and what ones will appeal to the student audience.

13 Basic rules Seven deadly sins of campaigning: Campaign chain: Unclear aims and objectives Activity planning happening before (or without) setting an aim Lack of evidence Going it alone Targeting the wrong decision maker Messages that people don t care about Forgetting to monitor and evaluate Identify a problem Identify solutions to a problem Write an effective campaign aim Build a campaign team Identify the decision maker Identify who influences the decision maker Map your allies Put together your arguments Plan your actions Talk to local media Thank campaigners Communicate wins Evaluate EUSA support EUSA staff and officers can help you to take forward your campaign activities. If you want to run a campaign but don t know where to start and want to find out if there are others who may be interested in helping then you could talk to one of the EUSA sabbatical officers and raise the issue at a Student Council meeting. Don t despair if you re unsure. EUSA staff can provide advice and guidance on how to plan your student campaign, including marketing and communication support for press and social media. Successful campaigns will be planned well in advance so talk to EUSA staff early on. us on [email protected] or pop into the EUSA offices in Potter row for a chat.

14 Further information The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) has lots of really great information on running campaigns Degrees have lots of inspirational and fun ideas for campaigns: